Operational Systems → Windows NT/2000/XP password recovery

Overview of Windows NT/2000/XP password protection:

Historically, all systems of Windows NT branch had to support two user authentication schemes Ė the so-called LanManager (LM) hashes and NT (NTLM) hashes. The first one contains grave cryptographic flaws. The worst one is that the passwords which are longer than 7 characters arenít cracked longer than the 7-symbols ones. Nowadays it takes just few minutes to crack a password of any length, consisting of letters of both cases, and the exhaustive search of all printablle passwords will take only couple of weeks.

The second scheme is much more secure, but usually itís no use cracking it, as the system often stores both hashes, and all attention is paid to the LM-hash.

Description: With Windows Password Recovery Bootdisk you will be able to retrieve logon passwords in three steps. First, the program creates a special record on a removable device, like CD or flash disk. Then, you use it to remove Windows users passwords or restore password hashes, even if they are encrypted with syskey. And finally, submit hashes to the Rixler Password Recovery Service to get back your Windows user password.

Description: A GUI utility, imports hashes from local machine (memory or Registry; SYSKEY supported), remote machine (AD is supported), binary Registry files (SAM, SYSTEM), dump files. Brute-force and
dictionary attacks on LM and NTLM password hashes are effectively optimized for speed; also includes a "rainbow" attack based on pre-computed hash tables that allow to find most passwords in minutes instead of days or weeks.

Description: Cain & Abel is primarily a password recovery tool for most types of password Microsoft Operating Systems. It also supports a lot of other applications and hashes, includes sniffers and password dumpers.

Description: High-performance distributed password recovery for forensic and government agencies, password recovery and data recovery services and corporations. Recover the most complex passwords and strong encryption keys in realistic timeframes. Accelerate the recovery by offloading calculations to NVIDIA GPUs and scale to over 10,000 workstations with zero scalability overhead.

Description: A Windows logon password cracker based on the faster time-memory trade-off using rainbow tables. It can recover 99.9% of alphanumeric passwords in few seconds. Imports hashes from local or remote computer, SAM file and PWDUMP.

Description: Are you locked out of your computer because your password isn't working, or because somebody messed up your access rights/privileges? Forgot the Administrator's password? Elcomsoft System Recovery (ESR) makes it simple to gain access to your PC again, without formatting and reinstalling the system.
ESR is a special boot disk that works on all PCs. Simply reboot your computer with the ESR CD or USB flash drive, and fix all of your access pro

Description: Windows Password Recovery Lastic is a simple tool to remove any Windows user account password. Run the program and 3 minutes later you will have a bootable fully standalone USB stick or CD/DVD disk. Boot from that device and select passwords you want to remove. Additionally, you can save or view Windows password hashes and try to crack them in attempt to find the original password. Restoring of a previously removed password is also supported.